One of my family’s favorite restaurants at Walt Disney World is Chef Mickey’s at the Contemporary Resort. We try to get a reservation at this restaurant just about every trip. It is a hard reservation to get because guests are able to get pictures and autographs of the Big 5 (Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, and Pluto), only have to wait around an hour to do, and they get to eat a meal while they wait for the characters to come to them.

Chef Mickey’s is open for breakfast and dinner. In the past, they have offered a lunch service during busier times. However, this does not mean that they will continue to do so in the future. Plan for Chef Mickey’s to be a breakfast and dinner reservation and if Disney happens to offer a lunch service during your stay consider that a bonus.

My family has only eaten dinner at Chef Mickey’s. We are not bigger breakfast eaters so using a table-service credit or paying out-of-pocket for a breakfast, even a buffet, is not a good value for us. This review will only focus on the dinner portion of the Chef Mickey’s restaurant.

I also want to note that the character pictures were taken by my family while the food pictures were taken by The Disney Food Blog. http://www.disneyfoodblog.com/

Disney has two water parks, Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach, where guests can go and cool off. These water parks are not included in the standard park ticket unless guests choose the “Water Parks and More” option when purchasing their tickets. One-day, one-park tickets can be purchased as well. Tickets cost $53 for ages 10 and up and $45 for ages 3-9.

What do you get at these parks?

Each park has a very similar set-up which fit into the theme of the park. Typhoon Lagoon’s theme is storm-ravaged tropical bay and Blizzard Beach has a “melting” ski resort theme. There are three attraction areas in each park.

Typhoon Lagoon has a shark reef area which has two saltwater reefs where guests can snorkel through stingrays, sharks, and tropical fish. This is included in the park admission.

The marquee attraction at Blizzard Beach is the Summit Plummet which features a 120-foot drop where guests can reach speeds approaching 60 miles per hour.

The Seven Dwarfs Mine Train officially opened for business today after a week of soft openings. As a result, the New Fantasyland project is now complete. The expansion has brought the addition of another Dumbo ride, a re-themed Great Goofini ride to fit in more with the Storybook Circus location, Under the Sea – Journey of the Little Mermaid, Enchanted Tales with Belle, and the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. The project took three years to complete. But today’s focus on the mine train.

I’m going to tackle my first attraction review today with one of Disney’s newer rides: Under the Sea – Journey of the Little Mermaid

Park: Magic Kingdom

Location in Park: New Fantasyland

Soft Opening Date: October 12, 2012

Opening Date: December 6, 2012

Vehicle Type: Omnimover

Riders per Clamshell: 2 or 3

Ride duration: 6 minutes 15 seconds

My family and I had the ability to ride this during the soft open period in November 2012. We went during a period that was only open to annual passholders. Even still, the ride had a 20 minute wait when we got into the queue. This gave us plenty of time to take pictures of the queue and inside the ride.